HorsePower for a Trucks! Project

Very.

So how did we get into this?

Still thrash the pain.

What

time

this is the most horsepower this thing seen in about 40 years, isn't it?

No, it's not. The truck show. Those guys are on later.

It is their 1948 Chevy pickup though. That's a beauty. Maybe you saw them give it the Patina paint job,

some upgraded suspension and steering.

Now it's an old work in progress. They've dubbed the class

six. Of course, this is where we come in the engine which will first pull out for a little tear down. What is it? Well, a little piece of Chevy history here for you. It's a 235 in line six considered to be a pretty durable powerful engine in this day. Now, they put them in 41 through 65 Chevys and trucks.

The truck guys say they want a mile performance upgrade while keeping as many original parts as possible.

And with the 235 finally out of the truck, we're off and running on our first ever in line six project.

This is obviously not the original engine because 54 the last two numbers on the right standard for the year T stands for utility truck. Z could be either utility truck or a school bus

taking this 235 apart. It's like a little history lesson

and check out the combination intake exhaust manifold this thing uses.

And what's this?

Well, it's a lever that used to be connected to a floor mounted starter button.

Anyway, the tear down continues and so far the block appears to have plenty of life left. Nice and smooth cast iron crank shaft seems to be in pretty good shape too.

Of course, we won't know for sure until we take them to a local machine shop where they can also get refurbished

grooves. Engines has been around since 1967.

First in the racing engine business. Now, it specializes in remanufactured motors

and quality machine work on all kinds of engines. This is the engine that we built to be the Street Rod Motor. Doug Anderson has been around for most of those years and he's a big reason for the company's top notch reputation. I think the first thing you have is the right people.

You gotta have people who are car guys and, and we work hard to find car guys because they, they understand why we do what we do. You gotta have good equipment

while equipment and engines have changed with the times. Doug says the Trusty 03 50 is still the heart of their business.

350 Chevy

300 horse stuff. It's so easy to make 300 horse today. In the old days we struggled to make, you know,

and what, what we didn't know is it was all in the heads.

Everybody chased it in the bottom. Really? It was all in the top. Look at the intake ports, you got two ports, feeding one valve.

Doug knows his engines. He's a walking encyclopedia

for him. They're a source of lifelong passion.

The nuances that we all take for granted, fascinate me. All the little things that are going on in an engine

that,

that people overlook. I think it's just,

you know, you pop the hood and there's just an engine underneath that stuff today.

But the engine is,

is doing incredible things every second of every day.

He's been around more than a few Chevy 230 fives, like the one we're bringing in for machine work today. It was called the stove bolt.

And the reason it's a stove bolt because they used the same bolt. They used to make stoves.

It was also called the Blue Flame Six by the way. And, well, Mike's just arrived with our 235 block heads and crank

the block and heads first visit the oven so they can bake at about 700 degrees

and we bake it to get all the hydrocarbons off. We got an afterburner that, that burns all the hydrocarbon. So it's a, it's an environmentally sound process. It also gets all the rust and iron ox out of the water jacket. We got to let that happen for several hours, but we can still look at the other steps that will go through in the process. We shot, blast it with small steel shot to clean it thoroughly.

We magni

flex it to make sure there's no cracks anywhere in the block or layer on the heads. And then from there it goes to machining. So we

board the block that means boring the cylinders. And technology has taken over that process here with a machine that works on each bore automatically.

The guys at boring will leave 3 to 5 thousands in the block because borings a ragged jag at tearing a metal and the rings of course would hate that. And so we go in and we hone and we take that dragon metal out and get down to base parent stock

and in doing that, then we put in the right size, we get size down to plus or minus 210. So we hold zero

and

the right cross hatch because the cross hatch wick the oil up,

which also is what puts the spin on the rinks.

They also align home the block's main saddles. If you control the size of the main saddle, the size of the crank and the size of the rods, you control the oil pressure in the engine.

After a thorough inspection, the heads get resurfaced

and a three angle valve job

and the great shaft

it gets inspected,

it gets ground.

The specification of the crank today is uh

is uh

8 to 12 roughness average. That's basically 12,000,007 inch deep for the average scratch

with today's thin oils. We think that if you're over six, you're asking for trouble with little

fite birds. And so we

spark out at the grinder. We polish get ourselves down to about a six R A and the crank is ready to come up.

Of course, for complete engine bill serves an assembly room where one man builds one engine before putting his name on it

and then

moves on for a run test that ensures the oiling is right on the money.

Our 235 components are obviously in good hands

the day I quit learning something new in this thing. I guess that's the time I retired. But right now I still love doing it.

Hard to imagine how many engines and blocks have been in and out of this place since 1967. Wow.

Well, our stuff will be out of here after the break and we'll start filling up that freshly machine block of our vintage blue flame six. Stay right there.

Hey, we're back and so is the block crank head and rods for trucks is old 235.

Now, we showed you some of the machining steps earlier and any time you get something back from the machine shop. You wanna make sure to double check all the measurements like I'm doing with this crank shaft. Now, believe it or not, all the 235 main journals were different sizes from the factory.

For example, the back journal measures 2.745

and the front journal is a lot smaller than that. Look at the difference.

Now, our block was cast back in 1954 and you can't get bearings without tangs anymore for 54 and older 2, 30 fives. So here's what we're gonna do to make them fit,

be sure to remove the complete bearing tank. If you don't, it can take up real estate in the saddle.

And when you tighten the mains down, you can lock the crank in place,

make sure to clean the bearing saddle and the backside of the bearing to remove any of that filing debris.

Now, for today's workout, lifting this overweight crank shaft and dropping it in.

We're using these 9.5 1000 shims to get the caps and bearings perfectly round in relationship to the crank journals. Plus they'll help provide the bearing clearance we want for proper oiling.

Now, with the main cap sit down, we can torque them to 100 ft pounds

with a magnetic base and di

and caner mounted to the block, we can check the thrust with

should be between three and nine thousands. We're right at nine which is fine.

This plate bolts to the front of the block and houses the timing cover unless the oil pan bolts to the bottom of it. But most importantly, it has this groove in the back that feeds oil to this quarter which oils the timing set

and that oil comes from the front cam journal.

This plate also gives proper clearance to our new hydraulic flat tap at camshaft. Now it's got more lift than the one that came out and we got it from a company called Chev of the forties. They were also the source for the timing set which has a steel crank gear but has an aluminum cam gear.

The stuff you learn when you tear down an old engine

thought that over 55 years ago, they were using a lightweight fiber material for the camshaft timing here.

The idea was to reduce noise but were they tough?

Well, this one broke when we tried to pull it off the cam,

the mainstream use of aluminum in production engines back then was still in its infancy.

The pistons had to be replaced with new ones that are 80 over and using floating pins. We've hung them on the original rods and caps that were cut and resize at the machine shop.

By the way, the compression ratio over the 235 is about 7 to 1.

Here's our new hydraulic flat tappet lifter that we got from Chev of the forties to match our new cam shaft.

And here's the stock solid flat tappets, we pulled out of the engine. Now, these things are actually hollow and a little goofy looking, but make sure you keep them when you pull them out because they make great chess pieces. Now also notice how the new lifter is a little bit shorter to accommodate that. We got a longer push rod.

Chances are you saw three holes like this one next to our lifters,

they're there to allow oil to drain from the lifter compartment down to the oil pan.

Now, during tear down, you might have also seen this little line in front of the lifters. It's actually an oil feed line feeds oil from the main galley up to the top of the engine.

Well, we took it off, blew air through it. So we thought we'd try to reuse it

well, when we did

it so brittle it broke, which is actually a good thing. Let me show you why

it's so

with sludge that eventually it would stop the oil flow and then yep, engine failure. So we have to make our own line.

All you have to do is use a marker and the old line as a template.

And here's where the engine stand can substitute for a tube bender.

Just gotta take it slow to keep from putting a kink in the line.

You will need the right tools to make double flares at both ends. We've got a kit from Matco to make ours.

So now we got a good supply of oil to the top end, unrestricted.

So our next step, well, we're gonna reinstall the cylinder head

and show you a new, old way to feed a 235 stick around.

Hey, welcome back. Well, it's official. The factory Muscle car wars are back

with Mustang Camaro Challenger battling it out to prove. They've got the baddest Factory Hot Rod.

But you know, something,

there are some unconventional weapons in this war too.

Recently on this show, we played with a Mazda speed three and discovered how this little pocket rocket could keep up with mini Mustangs and Camaros. Now, even the guy who drives to work in the corporate world can have his luxury and his performance

with this fourth generation Ford Taurus. Sho

Wait a minute. A Taurus. Yeah, this ain't your daddy's Taurus or your mommy's not with options like this slick luxury interior with a cool blend of leather chrome and carbon fiber

and the crowning glory. A twin turbo V6 rated at 365 horsepower.

We flash back and compare this to the third generation sho that only made 235 horsepower with no manual trans option

performance is also about handling

and with all wheel drive, this sho is super responsive

and while the power is no match for the Mustang,

hey, there's plenty when you punch it.

So do we leave well enough alone?

Hey, are you kidding? You know us

now we got some plans for this s A show, but since it belongs to dub magazine,

we'll put them on the spot to help us out.

Dove has a young hip readership of guys who like to have fun with their rides and give them unique personalities that truly pop.

Oh, that's part of the magazine too.

It is always Rim's Rule Dove magazine is an automotive lifestyle magazine that profiles artists, professional athletes, celebrities, entertainers and their vehicles. So kind of like a snapshot into their life. What what cars are they're driving? What type of maybe tattoos do they have? What type of jewelry, jewelry are they wearing? Maybe their outfits? You know what they're doing now in the music industry. And uh we really try to focus on how they give back and what they're doing for their communities. Now that they're successful,

the guys at Dove came up with the paint scheme adding flat black to the stock gray.

They also installed the TIF mesh grill. That's a huge styling change from what the factory provides.

Of course, it wouldn't be a dub car without a killer sound system.

We've got a couple of performance upgrades of our own though, like removing the stock air intake which comes out in no time

and replacing it with an air raid MXP system to allow more air into that already stout twin Turbo V6.

We've also got a magna flow cat back kit to help it exhale better.

Now, it first requires cutting both factory inlet pipes, four and three quarter inches behind the cats.

Then using clamps from the kit installed the inlet muffler assembly,

all tubing is 2.5 inches including the mid pipes.

And they lead to a pair of wide open, deep toned mufflers. They're finished off with four inch double wall ply stainless tips.

Now, if you think bigger is better even for rollers, well, you gotta love this 24 inch two piece wheels from tis,

you don't need 20 horny vision to see the difference.

So would you call this sho an executive hot rod?

One thing for sure

with a hot rod like this, no executive is ever going to miss a meeting.

09.

You're watching Horsepower for a DVD copy of this episode. Just go to Power Block tv.com and order your copy for just 595 plus shipping and handling. Start your own horsepower collection delivered right to your door from the power block.

It came out of the trucks, guys, class six pickup

got to throw, tear down in our shop before a visit to Gros engines for machining.

Then it came back here for the rebuild where we just finished the bottom end.

It of course is an in line 6235 that was cast back in 1954 for a Chevy truck. Originally with mechanical lifters, we just converted ours to hydraulic.

Now, this cast iron head, which weighs about a ton

is notorious for developing cracks. And I'm afraid ours was no exception.

After Magna

Lex thing at the machine shop, three small cracks were discovered all in the combustion chambers.

So they sent it to a shop up in Indiana where the repair process

ends by drilling two small holes on both ends of the crack. Now, what that does is keep the crack from running on any further. Then they take and they bevel the whole line against the crack and fill it with weld. Now it's a timely process and you can't put too much heat to it where it starts to distort the head. Now, once the welding is done, they take a burr

and round it all off back at grooms, it was rebuilt with new springs, valve guides and seals. Finally, pressure check to make sure these new valves are seating properly.

The head gasket for the 235 is bare metal on one side. Now, they require the use of copper coat, make sure not to get any in the cylinders, the cardboard not included

back then, the machine surface of the head had plenty of imperfections.

There are lots of water jackets around the outer edge of the head and the copper coat will help seal all of that and also prevent corrosion to the gasket

with the original bolts will torque the head to 95 ft pounds.

Now we're ready to drop in our new push rods. Now they're solid, which means no oil passes through them to oil. The rockers.

So how do the Rockers get lubricated? Well, it's by this coupler that ties the two rocker shafts together. The cylinder head has a hole in the top of it, which is an oil passage. The tube fits into it, oil comes into the coupler and it's forced through the shafts. The rocker arms have another channel where the oil runs through to splash the tips. This set up came assembled from pioneer. Now, the rockers are non roller but adjustable with our hydraulic lifters, we'll set them up at a half a turn past zero. Lash.

Here's something kind of cool. We just learned about the intake exhaust set up of this 235 they share a common passage

that has a heat riser valve attached to it. It's activated by a thermostatic spring.

Now, when you fire up the engine code, this valve is already open, allowing exhaust heat in to warm up the engine faster after the engine runs a while the spring activated by heat again closes, cutting off that supply of exhaust heat as cool as that is. We're not gonna use it anymore.

It's time for us to focus on a real issue. This engine came with a single carburetor mounted right here to feed all six cylinders. By the time the fuel mixture reached the outers, it was in a lean condition. So we're using this often Houser intake that houses two single barrels and it'll distribute the fuel evenly all the way across the board.

All that gas will come from these refurbished single barrel Rochester carbs. Now they're getting pretty rare and you can tell that by the core charges,

a little pre oiling is always a smart move on any fresh build, especially before the valve cover goes on

which often house are made to match that intake.

These last few replacement parts means we're done with this build.

One last oddity, this dirt bike exhaust is really for the crank KC back right to the ground.

This little engine was a blast to build. Don't be afraid to get out and tackle one of these old antique workhorses. This one's been around for 55 years and it's probably got another 50 left in it. Now, the next time you'll see it, Kevin and Ryan will be stuffing it into their project truck and firing it up.

That's if I give it back to them, we'll see you next week.